


Textbook

by imaginentertain



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Mental Illness, aftermath of the crash, talk of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginentertain/pseuds/imaginentertain
Summary: He looks it up a month following "the incident" and it turns out that he's actually textbook.  Of course he didn't come to this conclusion himself, it was Aaron's nurse – the one who fancied him and seemed to ignore the fact that he was there visiting his fiancé – who first said it.





	

He's textbook.

 

He looks it up a month following "the incident" and it turns out that he's actually textbook. Of course he didn't come to this conclusion himself, it was Aaron's nurse – the one who fancied him and seemed to ignore the fact that he was there visiting his fiancé – who first said it.

"You need to take care of you as well," she said as she laid a hand on his arm. "Don't want you two rotating in that bed."

"Not our usual idea of bed rotation, but I'll try most things once if he gives me enough notice and prep," Aaron quipped in an uncharacteristic display of territory pissing. When they were alone he'd followed up with an, "I would have thought the ring would have put her off," and seemed to completely forget the warning which, looking back, may as well have been in neon.

One of those lines which you look back and know was significant.

Restlessness – check. He couldn't sit still when Aaron came home, and covered it through fussing over him, over Liv, keeping the yard up and running, the haulage contracts. Everything and anything. Even allowed Layla to dump magazines on him for his perusal. "It's not all about the bride now," she'd declared. "Pink pound an' all that. Does that apply to bisexuals or is it just the gays?"

Sense of dread – check. That drive to the scrap yard had been utterly terrifying, and Aaron had joked about him causing their next accident. Which had led to the next thing:

Feeling on edge – check. He gave their new car a once over every week, checked breaks and wiring and connections. Every noise was investigated and he was both relived and furious when he discovered the rattling sound that had driven him mad for two days was because Liv had dropped a bag of Skittles.

Irritability – Liv had checked that one for him when he'd yelled at her for five minutes straight about the aforementioned Skittles. One comment about her brother marrying a "nut job" and he'd finally lost the last scrap of denial that he'd been clinging to.

Here he was, sat in front of the NHS website, a textbook case of anxiety. And damn if that didn't make him more nervous.

 

Thankfully, when it wasn't telling him he was dying of cancer or had a blot clot or something equally doomsdayish, the internet did have some tips on how he could help manage his anxiety. First thing he does is take up running, and turns his insomnia-induced early mornings into an excuse to hit the road. The mornings were dark and cold and the first time he only made it around the village before heading home because it was too much like the dark and cold of the water; the same struggle to breathe, the pain at the back of the throat from the chill, the loss of sensation in the extremities.

But he pushes on, further and further, until he is able to run to the old homestead and back again. Most mornings he is back and halfway through his shower when Aaron joins him and for the most part he was able to ignore the tendrils of that memory that had Aaron and water in less happy circumstances.

He sleeps a little better.

 

Some symptoms are easier to hide than others, but over time he fools himself into thinking that he's getting better. He focuses on Christmas, determined to make their first as a little family unit the best one. They are ending 2016 on a positive note because quite a lot of the year has been, as Liv eloquently puts it, "pretty shitty".

"Wasn't all bad," Aaron says, giving Robert's ribs a little dig. He puts his hand over Robert's left, his fingers brushing the metal against the skin. "Few good moments here and there."

"But mostly shitty," Liv repeats. She looks over at him and she smiles and his heart feels like it's doing that stuttering thing again.

"Next year will be better," he says, hoping to convince himself more than either of them.

"Got a wedding to look forward to, that's a start," Liv says as she kicks off her shoes and curls up in what has become known as her chair.

They've made this place a home for the three of them, and there are moments when Robert thinks he could actually forget everything. But there's a scar on his chest and there's a scar on Aaron's arm and he hasn't taken a bath since October (he showers, don't be thinking he's gone grunge) so he can't forget everything.

He tells himself he's getting better. The waves of sickness is just nerves over planning the perfect wedding. The heart stuttering is nothing, it's nothing at all. And the five mile morning runs and the nightly glass of whiskey helps with the sleeping.

When he checks the websites he's still textbook.

 

Christmas comes and goes and New Year looms. He tries to see it as a new start, a new beginning, but the dark and the cold seem to be all around him and it starts to invade his dreams. He takes two glasses before bedtime and it helps for a couple of nights. But on New Year's Eve their car skids on the ice that Aaron sees before he does and he slams on the breaks without thinking about it. Of course that only makes the situation worse but they only skid about ten meters or so before stopping, and before Aaron can stop him he's out of the car, door flung open and he's pushing away from it like he can't breathe.

He's only vaguely aware of Aaron watching him, waiting, and he gulps in the cold air, telling his lungs _not water not water not water not water_ and then he looks up at Aaron who doesn't seem scared or shocked or angry. Just patient.

"You ready to talk about this then, or do we need to wait a few more months?"

 

Turns out he loves a man who knows him inside and out. Also he loves a man who knows how to check browser histories.

("We're living with a teenage girl, Robert. I'm not stupid.")

He listens while Aaron talks about options, about things that he can do, things they can do, but Aaron stresses over and over that he doesn't have to do any of them just now. The only thing he has to do is talk to him.

So he talks.

 

At first it's just about the crash. The water, the steering column. Trying to get Aaron to breathe, the hospital. Stuff Aaron knows. He talks about how it felt to almost lose him, how he remembered sitting there with Victoria and Adam and thinking that if Aaron died then a part of him would die too. And how it felt like that part of him died anyway because since then there's been this hole inside him.

He touches his chest at this point and Aaron remarks that it's exactly where the bullet ripped into him.

"Can we just go to bed?" he asks instead of saying what he was going to say because the moment has gone and Aaron doesn't mention the lack of sleeping, and doesn't say anything when he pours himself a drink. But he leaves it half unfinished and allows his fiancé to take him to bed.

 

They wake on the first day of a new year and even in these new hours he can feel the weight of the last year pressing on him. Aaron's fingers rest lightly on his chest, his fingertips brushing the edges of the scar there.

"Do you want to go for a run?"

He turns to look at him, eyebrow already raised.

"It helps, right? With the anxiety?"

"...Yeah," he admits.

"So. Do you want to go or not?"

"I thought you'd be going on about getting proper help."

"It's New Year's Day, docs won't be open until the third 'cause of the long weekend. Think a couple of runs in the meantime won't hurt. But I'm coming too, OK? You don't do anything on your own."

He nods and they get dressed, leaving Liv a note to say they'd be back soon. She's not even up by the time they get back and when he goes for a shower it takes a little longer before the hatred of water rises up.

It's a small win, but he'll take it. If only because he knows that tomorrow it might be gone.

 

He goes to see someone, Aaron at his side, holding his hand. He talks about the shooting and the crash, and when he catches Aaron's look he talks about Aaron's self harm and how it made him feel.

He feels guilty for that, like he has any right to claim hurt over abuse not done to him. He thinks about asking Aaron to wait outside but he knows that Aaron will never go, will never leave him, so he doesn't.

He's referred to someone, given a couple of sleeping tablets and strict instructions to cut back on the night-time drinks. The running can stay so long as he doesn't push himself.

 

He doesn't talk on the drive home, just grips the wheel and obsessively checks every mirror before making any turns. He keeps the speed at five miles below the limit and tries to ignore the fact that Aaron wants to say something.

Neither of them mention the elephant on the back seat and he drives them safely home.

"I'll drive next time," Aaron says and looks at him as if daring him to object.

His hands shake, his tongue seems to fill his mouth, and all he can do is nod because it's easier and he won't win the fight.

 

He skips the shower altogether.

 

He talks about the obvious stuff at first, talks through moments he relives more often than he wants to and so knows them in stunning 4k HD clarity. She's lovely, talks him down when he struggles to breathe and makes him find the moments that are worth hanging on to.

He did get Aaron free.

He did get Aaron to breathe.

He didn't lose him.

He tries to hold on to those moments, he even physically holds on to Aaron one time when Liv is channel hopping and some scene from a movie shows a car plunging into a river. He's stopped drinking altogether to avoid the temptation and they run every other morning now.

 

"So are you two ever going to set a date, or are you going to be one of those stupid couples who are just engaged for the rest of their lives?" Liv asks one evening.

Aaron responds with a quip about not inviting her and she says she doesn't care because they'd only make her some stupid flower girl and Aaron now thinks that's the best idea and he's Googling for the most horrific pink and frilly dress he can find, something that has more lace that Edna Birch ever had in her home.

He smiles and joins in, and when she's gone to bed with threats and promises of what she will do to them both if they even try, he kisses Aaron and tells him that he just wants to be married to him. So they give notice at the registry office in Hotten and get the first slot they can legally book: four weeks to the day.

 

His counsellor is happy, she calls it progress.

He calls it avoidance and actually manages to say the word out loud. He interrupts her, says he's scared that he's drowning in something else because he's too scared to face the real issue.

She asks what it is but he doesn't tell her.

 

Aaron tries to ask how it went, but he says nothing as he reaches for the whiskey bottle again.

 

One step forward.

 

He invited Aaron to come with him to his next session. Invited may not be the right word when he actually said, "Please be there. You need to hear it too and this way there's no repeating."

So they go and they sit there and for a long few moments he doesn't say anything. They wait, sit in an uncomfortable silence, look at the floor, at each other, but not at him.

"It's textbook," he says, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. "Incognito browsing," he says to Aaron. "You didn't need to know this. Not then."

"Don't teach that trick to Liv," Aaron says as he takes the page first. He reads the headline and hands it to the counsellor without looking at her. "Robert—"

He says nothing, looks down at his clenched hands and twists his ring around his finger.

"How long have you not felt like yourself?" the counsellor asks as the page is placed on the table, the word _Dissociative_ trumpeting in a way that they can no longer ignore.

 

He talks for the full hour and she makes him come back the next day instead of next week. Aaron swears he's coming too, grabs his hand and there's something in that action that makes him feel grounded. He protests for a moment when Aaron takes the keys but he fights that thought down.

"Robert—"

He shakes his head. Not now, please.

"I love ya."

"Love you too," he says, and suddenly Aaron hears it, hears the absence of the word, sees it for what it is, realises how lost Robert is.

And he sees it in Aaron's face, hears it in the sniff and knows that Aaron dropped the keys on purpose so that he could wipe his eyes and have a moment to regain his composure.

So when Aaron stands and goes to unlock the car, he tries again.

"I... I love you," he says, and that time Aaron smiles.

 

They postpone the wedding and ignore everyone's questions except from those closest to them. They sit down with Chas, Liv, Paddy, Adam and Victoria, and Aaron reads from his notes about depersonalisation and disassociation and other things the professionals talked about.

He sits in that room, surrounded by people offering nothing but love and support, and he can't help but remember all the times they all said they hated him, wanted him gone, that he meant nothing to them.

Aaron holds his hand and tells him to ignore that voice in his head, to listen to the ones that he can hear for himself. "Listen to me if no one else," Aaron says.

"I'll try," he says without thinking about it, and then they smile at this little thing between them that is a big thing that no one in the room really gets right now.

 

One step forward.

 

They've been engaged for almost a year before they actually manage to make it official. It's small and intimate and soppy but they love it. Robert's speech is so personal that it makes everyone cry, and not because of the way he talks about his love for Aaron, but because of the way that he talks about himself.

"I know I'm two up on the whole saving your life thing, but you saved me. Grounded me. This feels... real to me in a way I never thought I would have."

 

It's not a fairytale, they know. They have triggers and they have issues but they have each other to rely on and they have family who are there to catch them should they fall and it's like all the textbooks say: support helps.


End file.
